Baybayin

Image above created by Nordenx

Baybayin (pre-kudlit: ᜊᜊᜌᜒ, post-kudlit: ᜊᜌ᜔ᜊᜌᜒᜈ᜔) is a pre-Spanish Philippine writing system. It is a member of the Brahmic family and is recorded as being in use in the 16th century. It continued to be used during the Spanish colonization of the Philippines up until the late 19th Century.

The term Baybay literally means "to spell" in Tagalog. Baybayin was extensively documented by the Spanish. Some have attributed it the name Alibata, but this name is incorrect. (The term "Alibata" was coined by Paul Rodríguez Verzosa after the arrangement of letters of the Arabic alphabet alif, ba, ta (alibata), “f” having been eliminated for euphony's sake.")

Modern scripts in the Philippines, descended from Baybayin, are Hanunó'o, Buhid, Tagbanwa, Bisaya and Kapampangan script.

Baybayin is one of a dozen or so individual writing systems used in Southeast Asia, nearly all of which are abugidas where any consonant is pronounced with the inherent vowel a following it diacritical marks being used to express other vowels (this vowel occurs with greatest frequency in Sanskrit, and also probably in all Philippine languages).

Patinig (consonants)

The three vowel characters were only used at the beginning of words and syllables, or syllables without any consonant. There were only three vowels because the ancient Tagalogs, and many other linguistic groups, did not distinguish between the pronunciations of i and e, or u and o until Spanish words entered their languages. Even today these sounds are interchangeable in words such as lalaki/lalake(man), babae (woman) and kababaihan (womanhood or womankind), uód/oód (worm), punò (tree trunk) and punung-kahoy (tree), and oyaye/oyayi/uyayi (lullaby).

The vowel characters actually represented vowels that were preceded by a glottal stop. This pronunciation was more common in the pre-Hispanic era but has changed over the centuries due to the influences of western languages. This shift can be seen when early texts, such as the Doctrina Christiana, are compared to modern Filipino. For example, we syllabicate the words ngayón (today) and gagawín (will do) as follows: nga-yon and ga-ga-wín respectively. But the baybayin text of theDoctrina reveals a different syllabic division. Ngayón was written, ngay-on, and gagawin was writtenga-gaw-in. (source)

Katinig (consonants)

Kudlit

kudlit means a small cut or incision, which is exactly what it was back in the days when Filipinos wrote on bamboo. Since we now write with pen and paper, or a computer, the kudlit mark can be any shape. Usually it is a dot or tick, or sometimes it is shaped like a v or an arrowhead >. The sound of a letter is not changed in any way by the shape of the kudlit; it is changed by the position of the kudlit. (source)

The kudlit is placed above a letter to signify the sound of I or E.

And to change the sound of a letter to U or O, the kudlit is placed below.

Vowel Killer

To terminate the inherent /a/ sound simply place a slash kudlit just below right of the character.

Baybayin Documentary

On this inside spread of the Doctrina Christiana we have the translation of La Salve Regina. On the left page is the tagalog version written in baybayin. On the right side is the Spanish version in the European alphabet.